We met on the road, around a corner after I cycled past him in a lakeside town in Myanmar. Within a five minute conversation, we had decided to meet again and within 24 hours, we had decided to travel together. Two years and seven countries later, I got married to my favourite travel buddy.
Very few couples who meet travelling make it beyond a sad airport goodbye, with an impending, awkward Skype breakup. And it’s a shame really, because life on the road is often rough and always unpredictable - a roller-coaster experience of highs and lows. And if you can make it through that and still like each other, you've probably met someone worth holding on to. But we are wired to be sceptical of chance encounters. Of fantasies, love-stories and wandering vagabonds.
Much rhetoric related to finding love and building relationships is mired in abstract and entangled vocabulary, conjured by love-gurus in rom-coms and cheap paperbacks. We know to look for “like-minded” people, but generally agree that “opposites attract”. We seek connection, chemistry and crave compatibility and commitment. In our quest for companionship, we watch out for those red-flags and creeps, drama-queens and fuckboys. We date within our league, mingle with caution and fuss about our relationship status.
Soulmate is another big word in the love industrial complex, among the biggest. Because even against my best, most defiant intentions, there I was - consumed by wanderlust, on the road in search of my soulmate.
When it comes to romance, I have always had faith in the travel community. It’s a singles utopia, teeming with worldly, intrepid people with an appetite for real conversations. As a worldly, intrepid and unapologetic introvert, these prospects have always delighted me. The road is my comfort zone and within its cozy trails is where I ran into my “soulmate”.
He shares with me a sense of wonder for all that there is. He has followed me across frozen rivers and led me to warm sunsets. We’ve rolled down a valley of buttercups and sung songs with strangers on a train. With him, there's always a new place to drive through, weird new food to try and a new country to find on the map.
He's learnt his life lessons and priorities from people around the world. He's educated in the art of letting go, having said goodbye to so many places and faces that changed him forever. He values new experiences over indulgences, memories over souvenirs. He’s instinctively compassionate, having seen the world through his own eyes. And like any solo traveller, he’s independent, introspective and always great company!
As travellers, our relationship is driven by movement and is replete with uncertain roads that we will tread, knowing full well that the places we go may redefine us. I married a man who travels because he embraces the universal constant of change. Because we both will change, and so will our lives. May be the wanderlust will fade, or even go away. Change is inevitable and it’s impossible to predict how any relationship will cope with the individuals we will become, but a man who travels is probably the best bet.